Into The Dark
by DissMech
Summary: A woman wakes up in a cold bright examination room. No name, no past, no memory. They handed her a sword and told her to kill. Thus passes innocence. The Ordo Malleus cares not for your name, nor for your feelings or fears. You will serve, you will suffer, you will die. And the galaxy will spin on.
1. Chapter 1

_O for a voice like thunder, and a tongue to drown the throat of war! When the senses are shaken, and the soul is driven to madness, who can stand? -William Blake_

Private Erlantz Abaroa only just barely managed to raise the visor of his helmet above his mouth before he threw up noisily on the steel floor of the ship. The stench of his own vomit, the cold copper smell of drying blood and the unmistakable smell of human feces filled the air before him, and he quite nearly heaved again. Normally his comrades might have mocked or chided him for his weak stomach. But not here, not now. The dark halls of the battlecruiser, _Sword of Righteousness_ stretched on before them, the terminus hidden in deep shadow. They were not afraid of the dark, normally. When the halls were decorated with the shredded flesh and scraps of armor of dozens of guardsmen and naval ratings, they could be forgiven for a bit of uneasiness. Erlantz straightened slowly and pulled his visor back down as his Sergeant clapped him on the shoulder. Not a word was spoken, none wanted to break the ghastly silence, as though it would attract the attention of whatever monstrous force had torn its way through the crew.

Finally the Sergeant spoke, his voice hoarse over the vox, "Come on. We've got a job to do, sooner we get started the sooner we can leave." He didn't sound eager to begin searching this abattoir of a ship, but it wasn't as though they had much choice in the matter. Erlantz took comfort in the thought that at least they weren't alone, there were about a dozen other squads working their way through the ship from various other access points. He wondered if their reception had been just as gruesome.

The further they moved into the ship the worse it got, blood, now half dried and tacky, smeared the walls. They had found many corpses, but not a single one intact. It was like their enemy had attacked in a rage so fierce, it had not been satisfied with merely killing them, but had torn them into a thousand pieces, delighting in the carnage. More disturbingly, as far as they could tell, there were no enemy dead. Erlantz heard his squadmates begin to whisper of ghosts and daemons. Superstitious nonsense of course, but still there was something about walking through the carnage filling this dark and broken craft that filled him with a creeping dread of the unknown, a fear more acute than even the priests' speeches of the horrors of chaos or the Commissar's ever present bolt pistol could ever hope to inspire. He was sweating profusely beneath his void suit and he felt chilled. If his hands had been bare he would have dropped his shotgun by now.

Erlantz stiffened, cocking his head forward, a sound, something besides the clunk of their mag-boots on the floor of the ship and the occasional squish as they stepped in something that had once been human. It was faint, on the edge of hearing, a high pitched wail, like the cries of the damned. He saw the others stand straighter, they had heard it too, Erlantz felt a wave of relief, it wasn't just his imagination. The wail went on and on, longer than he would have believed any human capable of, then trailed off into a hysterical sound halfway between laugh and scream. He felt all warmth drain from his face followed by a wave of icy sweat, he looked at the others, through the transparent slits of their visors, they looked as pale as he was sure he was.

The man beside him, a gaunt Corporal whose name Erlantz could never remember, spoke up in a shrill voice. "Probably just a compartment depressurizing. The metal makes weird noises, no point in investigating that right?" The Sergeant shook his head and began to move forward again, the remainder of the squad following in his wake, "Better not let the Commissar hear you talking like that Ibarra, 'less you're itching for a bolt to the back of the head." Erlantz kept his peace as Corporal Ibarra grumbled and cursed under his breath, but he couldn't help but think that a Commissar's bolt pistol was far less painful looking than what these poor sods had gone through.

As they continued on and on, the wailing and laughter at times grew louder or quieter, sometimes it sounded as though it were mere meters in front of them. The bizarre layout of the corridors and the echoes they created were playing tricks on their senses, that much Erlantz knew, but it still frayed his nerves. It was enough for him to understand why the other men in his squad were whispering of ghosts. It certainly sounded like a ghost, if he had been less rational, less well educated he might have believed it as well. Then almost by accident, they stumbled upon what looked like a briefing room of some sort. A table with a holo-tank embedded in the center dominated the room. The holograph, some planet or other, flickered fitfully, the light stained red by spattered blood. The light cast by their lamp-packs skittered across the floor and walls, picking out more corpses, the room was practically choked with them. The wailing sounded like it was almost on top of them. Then as Erlantz looked toward what he guessed must be the northern (by ship standards anyway) entrance to the room, he spotted movement. He was so twitchy he nearly filled the corridor with buckshot, but a moment later he was glad he didn't. "I found a survivor Sarge!" He called, forgetting for a moment that he was on vox and had probably just deafened his squad. He didn't much care, the sight of a survivor, any survivor was such a relief.

It was a woman, sitting on the floor in a puddle of gore, knees drawn up to her chest as she rocked back and forth weeping and laughing hysterically. Erlantz made his way toward her, picking his way through the bodies in his path, he heard the Sergeant shout something, but he didn't care. By the Emperor they would save one person from this wreck. He noted almost absently that she was no guardswoman. She was dressed in dull grey carapace armor, scarred and worn from use, not a single mark of rank visible on it, clutched in her right hand, was the hilt of a broken power sword. He crouched in front of her and placed a hand on her shoulder, abruptly she stopped weeping and her head snapped up, a bloody gash marred her face from the right side of her forehead down between her eyes all the way to the left side of her jaw. She barely seemed to notice, her green eyes stared wildly at him, Erlantz was suddenly sure that the woman had gone completely mad. With all this who could blame her?

"Do you believe in monsters?" The question startled him, and for a moment he wasn't sure where the almost childish voice had come from. The woman stared at him earnestly. Yeah, she had lost it, aliens sure some of them could be pretty monstrous. Honest to the Emperor _monsters_ though? Children's stories. But for some reason he found himself shying away from meeting her gaze, as though he might see whatever it was that had slaughtered an entire battlecruiser's crew and driven her mad shining out from her eyes. His gaze wandered down and then snapped to her belt. He did a double take, for the third time that day he felt the blood drain from his face. His Sergeant was still shouting at him, picking his way across the room, he felt a hand slam down on his shoulder and jerk him away from the madwoman, he didn't resist, only pointed mutely. The Sergeant stopped berating him abruptly and followed his finger. He felt his Sergeant grow tense, stiffening almost, then the man whispered, "Get her back to the ship, report this to the Colonel." He reached down to her belt and tore the offending item off to stuff it in one of the pockets of his webbing, "Do not speak to anyone but the Colonel of this. She's a mercenary. Got it?"

Erlantz nodded quickly and hauled the woman to her feet, she was light and she did not resist him, he wasn't terribly pleased to be assigned to her, but at least she wasn't screaming. He felt a hand prod his arm, he looked down to find her staring up at him again. "Dancers in the dark," She whispered, her voice thick with terror. Erlantz frowned, the hell did that mean? He put a hand on her shoulder, trying to both reassure the woman and keep her moving, "No dancers here miss, just us." The assurance didn't seem to satisfy her, but she still allowed herself to be led away. Behind them the Sergeant looked for a long moment at a sword blade, bereft of its hilt, plunged deep into the wall, something black and sticky dripped from it. The man turned away and quickly made his way back up the hall toward the safety of the transport they had come in. He left the broken sword where it was, some things were best left undisturbed.

At the thirteenth hour of the following day, twelve cruisers closed in on the _Sword of Righteousness_. Lances flared as the ship was quickly and methodically cut to pieces. Explosions quickly consumed what remained of the once proud vessel. Somewhere far away in the dusty halls of the Adeptus Administratum, a scribe drew an unbroken red line through the words _Sword of Righteousness, _beside the legend was written '3-426-712.M41 Warp drive malfunction. No survivors.' Thus were the deaths of 107,000 men and women noted, and immediately forgotten.


	2. Chapter 2

It opened its eyes. The ceiling above it was gleaming, metallic, a harsh white light set directly over its face shone blindingly down. It squinted as the light seemed to drive corkscrews of pain directly into its brain. It lay on something hard, and as it shifted the object beneath felt ice cold. Finally it sat up, took stock. The object it had lain on seemed to be a flat metal slab, the room filled with unfamiliar equipment. Saws, needles, lasers, bizarre devices it could not even begin to guess the purpose of.

It looked down at itself. Its skin was pale, a pinkish brown color nearing white, marred with small darker dots dusting the tops of its shoulders and chest. Freckles, its mind supplied helpfully. It frowned, wondering for a moment where that information had come from, before returning to its examination. It had two legs, two arms, slender, its frame covered in taut muscle. Its chest swelled out a bit, not with muscle either, it frowned again as it cupped the protrusions in its hands, the frown turned to a soft gasp and it jerked its hands away again. Again its mind supplied the information, breasts. Its hand dipped between its legs, and once more that... sensation, this time more intense. It jumped slightly and pulled its hand away, eyes a little wider than usual. Vague concepts took shape in its mind. Human, female, she, her, it was a she. She smiled faintly, satisfied simply with knowing_what_ she was. Only then did the thought occur to her, why hadn't she known?

Her reverie was cut short as a heavy metal door opened with a clunk. In stepped... a thing. She wasn't sure what to make of it. It stood at least two and half meters tall. Bipedal, swathed in dark red robes, its eyes were a cluster of glowing white lights, instead of a mouth it seemed to have... some sort of thicket of metal tentacles, or cables. Sprouting from its back was a metal arm, tipped with all sorts of tools she didn't want anywhere near her rather fragile skin. The thing spoke. "The subject is conscious. Good. Appears to be more or less functiona- if you hide under that table I shall come drag you out." She froze, she had been considering doing just that, moving in that general direction, the... thing was frightening, and it stirred... something. She did not like it. Still, something instinctual arose, something she could not place her finger on. She did not hide under the table. "Good. Conditioning seems functional as well. Say something." She did not think, her mouth moved practically of its own accord, "Something!" She blurted. The thing, tech priest her mind belatedly informed her, cocked its head to one side, staring at her for a long moment. "Good enough," it finally said, "Overly literal interpretation, but an easily repaired fault." It threw a bundle at her, her hands snapped up to catch it, again without conscious thought, it was clothing, plain, black, much the same texture as PDF fatigues, she no longer bothered to wonder where the flashes of information came from. "Dress yourself," The tech priest ordered flatly.

No more than two minutes later they were walking briskly down a corridor, as harshly lit as the room they had just left, while she struggled with buttons of the uniform blouse she'd been provided. The tech priest did not speak to her again, only gave her the occasional irritated glance when she fell behind. Falling behind was all too easy, she was somewhere around a meter shorter than he? She? It? She really couldn't tell, only the mysterious information occasionally popping into her mind told her that the robed priest in front of her was in fact a human at all. Finally she asked the question that had been bothering her for some time now. "Who am I?" She said. The priest did not answer. She felt some irritation of her own bubbling up. She'd woken up in some kind of lab, not even knowing _what_ she was, and now some arrogant jackass tech priest wouldn't even tell her her own Emperor damned name? "Hello? I asked-" The tech priest didn't even look back at her, "I know what you asked. Be silent." And just like that, her mouth snapped shut. She opened her mouth again to shout her frustration at him... and nothing came out. Not a word, not even a sound. The tech priest either did not notice her struggling, or did not care.

It led her into yet another room, this one not so sterile as the first. The harsh white overhead lights had been replaced with the warm flickering light of candles. The room smelled of incense, the fumes of it so thick it made her feel light headed. Parchment was scattered over every surface, much of it scrawled in writing she could not read or diagrams that made little sense. They were not alone in the room. Three figures stood opposite them. In one corner, an old man in priestly vestments, he chanted loudly in a cracked voice, whatever prayer he said it was in High Gothic, and she could not understand it. Even as he chanted he stared at her intensely, his eyes alight with religious fervor and no small amount of hatred. In the other corner stood another man, blindfolded, shaven, the fingers of both hands scarred and malformed, something told her they had been broken, over and over. Something about him made her uneasy, more than the crazed priest, but she couldn't say what. And in the center... in the center there he stood. Clad in gilded power armor, At one hip hung a massive bolt pistol, at the other a pair of swords. Purity seals studded his armor here and there, and in one hand he held a closed book. She wasn't sure what it was, but she did not much care. For from his belt hung a small symbol, a red I, a skull emblazoned over top of it, wings behind it. Immediately knowledge filled her mind. The Emperor's Holy Inquisition. What had she done to deserve their attention? What would they do to her? And yet, though the man's face was solemn enough, it did not seem to hold any threat.

For a long moment, the only sound in the room was the dripping of hot wax and the priest's chanting. Finally she could stand it no longer. The question came to mind again, the one that held the mystery as to why she was here, why she could remember nothing, why she stood in front of an Inquisitor. "Who am I?" She asked again. The Inquisitor smiled faintly, as though he had been waiting for that very question. He unbuckled one sword from his waist and offered the hilt to her. She blinked, then she took hold of it and drew it. It was not a new sword, the leather wrapping the hilt was worn smooth, and stained dark with sweat, the blade, though it looked razor sharp, had a triangular chip in it near the middle. It felt familiar in her hand. "We are the Inquisition, we are the sword and shield of humanity. We seek out the tainted, we pursue the vilest evil. And now, so shall you. You are an acolyte of the Ordo Malleus. That is all you need know, that is all that matters." As the priests' chant reached some sore of crescendo, and whatever ritual she had been called her to complete ended, the woman looked down at the chipped blade in her hand, and she wondered.


	3. Chapter 3

The woman stared out the viewport of the small ship. It would be a few hours before the small slow craft finally brought her from the surface of the planet below to the _Arm of Justice_, Inquisitor Anton Hadrax's personal warship. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the window, a small heart shaped face, dusted with freckles, short jaw length red hair, wide green eyes, attractive she supposed. She found herself unable to dwell on her appearance for long however, the sight of ships orbiting the grey bruised planet below beckoned. Here, a small six engine freighter, no more than two or three thousand crew, inadequate defenses, any half decent boarding party ought to make short work of it. There, a fast dagger like cutter, three engines, heavily armed with macro-batteries and lances. It was probably a raider of some kind, maybe working with a letter of marque from the Sector Governor, maybe a pirate. There, the prize of the bunch, the _Arm of Justice_, a sleek and beautiful Chalice class battlecruiser, just over five kilometers long with a crew of ninety-eight thousand souls, it was fast, powerful, slender and deadly looking. ... And it was an utter failure, the design had been scrapped after it became clear that the ship's plasma conduits had a disconcerting tendency to explode quite suddenly. She frowned, it was a bizarre choice of ship for an Inquisitor.

The woman leaned back and sighed, it wasn't as though worrying about it would change anything. Besides, she was sure that modifications must have been made, no Inquisitor would get on board a ship if he thought it would blow up with him inside. It would be hours yet before they arrived. She leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes, allowing her to rest against the worn leather behind her. Images flashed beneath her eyelids, war, death, swamps, and forests, and blood soaked trenches. And then they solidified into something coherent. She stood in a line with other men and women, they were pale, dirty, their hair black, blonde, or red, their skin decorated with paint and tattoos of greyish blue. They stood in an open field, but no matter where one looked the swamps and forests were visible with tall dark forbidding trees and dangling vines so thick, one person would be hard pressed to squeeze through let alone a battalion. The air was cold and damp, mist shrouded the land like an ever-present veil, it was not pleasant, but it was... familiar. Their flak armor had once been plain dull green, it was decorated now with daubs of mud and paint, furs, talismans, charms. Someone didn't like it, someone important, but they hadn't been made to change them back, not yet at least. The sergeants were screaming at them, and they were running, single file, into the mist and the swamps. The sergeants hurled abuse at them the entire way, occasionally focusing on one particular person or another, watching them shrivel and wilt beneath the rain of taunts and curses. All the while she saw him, the commissar off to the right, driving alongside in a truck, always watching, always fingering his bolt pistol, as though looking for the slightest excuse to use it. She clutched the leather wrapped hilt of the sword on her hip, taking comfort in its weight and its solidity. And she ran.

They had become accustomed to their autoguns weeks ago, they were much like the black powder muskets they'd grown up using. Different of course, more shots, more accurate, lighter, more reliable. But more or less the same concept. Now though, they stood in front of this... beast of war, and they had to force themselves not to back away. It growled constantly, rumbling and vibrating, like it was begging to be set loose to grind men and women beneath its steel shod feet. She shuddered. It was unnatural, clad in metal, a great cannon set on top. And men inside, working its guts. She knew intellectually that the Leman Russ was not actually alive, but it still incited an instinctive terror, like a predator ready to strike. She would not like to be on the receiving end of one of these, standing next to one was bad enough.

And now they were shipping out. Carried off of their world, that mist drenched, evil, diseased place in the belly of a great ship, the size of which still boggled her mind. The population of hundreds of villages like she'd grown up in could be fit in the bowels of this vessel and never be noticed. It was the dream of many to leave their world in the great skyships that the Star King sent to gather his faithful warriors every three or four generations, but she still had never imagined she might be one of them. Nor had she imagined how bizarre His other servants would be. She had met others of his warriors, from other places. Men in strange mail, bright like mirrors, men in heavy looking armor that covered them head to toe, men with some sort of magic that allowed them to fly (she had been told it was not, but the explanations of their bizarre backpacks had made little more sense than magic). And perhaps most surprising, she had discovered that it was not just the Commissar who was tall, but no, everyone made her people look short by comparison. The one regiment she had seen with a similar stature were those strangers with the flying backpacks, she privately suspected that the backpacks required people of a certain height to make the magic work, it was the explanation she could think of. Worse still were the languages, everyone spoke Gothic certainly, but it all seemed to be of different dialects, with bizarre words she had no context for thrown in. A 'hive'? What like an insect hive? Who lived in those? Some talked about 'dunes' and 'deserts,' she could not even conceive of a place with so little water. She suspected she would never get used to the strange soldiers from the other regiments.

Their first deployment, their first battle. Their ship had set down on a world, strange by her standards, she got the feeling all worlds would be. No forests for as far as she could see. It was shockingly flat. And instead of the villages of her childhood, wood and thatch, a peat lantern on every corner, here... Here there were cities, white stone and sparkling windows, the streets were broad and paved with brick. The lights were electric, not some, all of them. Before she had joined His Majesty's Imperial Guard she had seen a glow globe perhaps once in all of her sixteen years. Here they were everywhere. And the people, all tall, tanned, pale, and dark as the sweet 'chocolot' one of the other guardsmen had given her. And... it was embarrassing. The vids they'd seen had always shown cheering crowds meeting the battalions of guardsmen. But those guardsmen had been tall, clean shaven, their armor pristine. What greeting did a regiment such as theirs receive? With their dirty armor, their furs, their talismans, and their warpaint? Silence, whispering, a few laughs here and there. It was not shaping up to what she'd expected. The other guardsmen around her didn't look much happier with the situation, but then, what could they do but march and deal with it? She caught something out of the corner of her eye, and took the chance to look. It was a girl, maybe a little older than her, tall, tanned, gorgeous... and staring right at her. She gulped and stood straighter, trying to look as tall as her 152 centimeters could manage. It wasn't much, but it seemed to amuse the girl. She flushed. She wasn't entirely certain if she was sick, or if her stomach was turning somersaults for another reason, but when the girl gestured at her, _'you, me, there,' _pointing at one of the many taverns lining the main thoroughfare, something inside her definitely leapt. She looked straight ahead again, grinning like an idiot, imagining tonight when she would-

The ship jerked hard and a metallic grinding noise filled the cabin. The woman woke up. She was not well pleased at being forced to leave that dream behind, but it seemed they had arrived. She wondered about the dream. Were they actually her memories? Maybe. Did they matter? She was almost certain the dreams were coming to her for a reason, what that reason was, she had no idea. As she stepped out of the craft and into a hangar, she was almost immediately picked up by an escort of stormtroopers, something told her not to be too worried about that. Indeed, it seemed there was nothing sinister about it, they quickly and efficiently led her to what seemed almost like a dormitory. A common room, a small kitchen, and surrounding it doors to what she assumed were bedrooms. The occupants of the room looked up immediately, she opened her mouth to speak, to introduce herself. What would she say? I am a tool of the Ordo Malleus? The words she needed came without prompting, "I assume you are the rest of the cell I've been assigned to? My name is Siana Cadogan, I'm looking forward to working with you." She blinked, surprised at herself, she wasn't sure how she knew that name, or how she knew who it belonged to, but she was dead certain that was the name of the young guardswoman she'd been dreaming of.


End file.
